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The first round of talks in what the U.S. and EU trade representatives intend to be the largest bilateral trade agreement ever have begun. The governments call it TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Everyone else calls it TAFTA, the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. Whatever the name, it will regulate all U.S. and EU trade, or around 30 percent of world trade in goods. And according to the first leaks of negotiation documents, it threatens to be yet another trojan horse for copyright and internet issues.

We have been following developments since Pres. Barack Obama announced his intention to create a U.S.-EU agreement at his State of the Union address earlier in 2013. Now, it seems that our concerns were warranted: a newly leaked document from La Quadrature du Net shows how EU delegates intend to set rules around liability for Internet Service Providers and regulations over the transfer and processing of users' personal online data, as well as rules to set a "uniform approach" to cyber security across the region. While the document makes no mention of copyright enforcement, other statements lead us to believe that it will also be included.

U.S. and European delegates will negotiate TAFTA secretly, mirroring the same undemocratic processes that led to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, TAFTA's objective is to address a wide range of cross-border regulatory issues under one overarching agreement. In March, EFF joined 44 other U.S. and EU organizations in calling for transparency in the process and to ask our trade representatives to leave copyright, patent, and trademark issues off of the drafting table.

The precedent of ACTA shows that industries can have tremendous (if not total) influence on the content of such an agreement, and that EU negotiators from the Commission can hardly be trusted to defend general interest [ . . . ]

The same goes for U.S. negotiators. Lobbyists paid by the concentrated wealth of special interests currently dominate the objectives of our national trade policies - such as Internet companies that would prefer lax privacy controls, or entertainment industry companies pushing for copyright crackdowns. The creators and users of new, decentralized technology, who exercise their right to free speech and association over the Internet, have no voice at the table. This results in agreements, like ACTA or TPP, that uphold the concerns of a few powerful private interests at the expense of the present and future public interest and the civil liberties of Internet users worldwide.

Given how trade delegates have reacted so far over this latest transatlantic agreement, there is no doubt that established corporate interests from both sides of the Atlantic will do the same to influence TAFTA. If the process were open and transparent, we would at least know if and when problematic language was being included in this agreement. Until there are more leaked documents, we can only guess what kinds of specific proposals trade negotiators are developing inside these closed-door meetings.

During the week of 1 July 2013, European leaders publicly complained that TAFTA was impossible given the revelations that the U.S. spies on its Europe's negotiators. That now looks to have been political bluff. It seems that surveillance by trade partners will continue to be acceptable, as long as the negotiations themselves are concealed from the general public.

Access to Information:

More from Access to Information

After already cracking down on freedom of information in recent years, President Erdoğan has taken advantage of the abortive coup d’état and the state of emergency in effect since 20 July to silence many more of his media critics, not only Gülen movement media and journalists but also, to a lesser extent, Kurdish, secularist and left-wing media.

“After the initial optimism during the Euromaidan movement, many journalists have become disillusioned. They are faced with the triple challenge of the war in the Eastern part of the country, the economic crisis and the digitalization of mass media.”

In 2014 Cambodian journalists increasingly found themselves in the news, as reporters faced injury and even death for covering the news. 2014 proved the deadliest year for Cambodian journalists since the political turmoil of 1997, with two Cambodian journalists confirmed murdered in relation to their work and a third, foreign journalist found dead under suspicious circumstances.

While media freedom in Spain remains robust and certainly comparable to its European neighbours, at such a critical moment for the Spanish public there is a need to ensure maximum access to the free flow of information.

As the United Nations reflects on the future of global development and the post-2015 agenda, access to information must be recognised as critical to supporting governments to achieve development goals, and enabling citizens to make informed decisions to improve their own lives. IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, believes that libraries help guarantee that access.

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 9 October 2014

The goal of this report is to provide African governments, civil society, researchers and other stakeholders with a tool that will guide and support the development and advancement of the right to information in Africa.

By their very nature, libraries are poised to become forces for social change and using this exhibit as an example, libraries themselves can show the life of their communities by putting their responses on display to support their involvement in social movements, engage others, and document for the future

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 7 March 2014

For the fourth consecutive year, the IPA and PricewaterhouseCoopers have carried out a global survey on the application of VAT on printed books and e-books. It reveals that much progress remains for countries to adopt a non-discriminatory, consistent tax regime for printed and e-books.

Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) is pleased to join the Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet) in launching a major global analysis of the development of the right to information (RTI) movement, broken down by region.

The government has enacted unnecessary restrictions on access to information about forest concessions and land claims. Authorities have harassed and intimidated local activists who have been bringing attention to forest sector abuses, and a number of environmentalists and activists have been arrested or prosecuted in recent months over plantation disputes.

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

This publication is a component of the National Endowment for Democracy, (NED) funded project that has unearthed a dismal level of denial to disclose information in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government in Liberia.

In scrutinising the GE13 coverage provided by the most popular and influential Malaysian media, the Watching the Watchdog media monitoring project found that different 'Language Media' (English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Mandarin) provide differential information about GE13 participants, although in all cases, they reproduce the pro-BN bias found by the Watching the Watchdog project overall

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